


Straight As A Bow, And Flies Like An Arrow

by araliya



Category: Glee RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-31
Updated: 2017-12-31
Packaged: 2019-02-25 21:27:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13221597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/araliya/pseuds/araliya
Summary: When Darren reaches his limit, Chris is always there to remind him what they're fighting for.





	Straight As A Bow, And Flies Like An Arrow

**Author's Note:**

> For this prompt on tumblr: can u write something that's sorta angsty but hurt/comfort loving? Darren has sorta reached his limit of constantly saying he's straight straight straight in every dang interview and how much he wants to tell everyone how much he loves C and C says he understands but as long as HE knows how D feels, that's all that matters? Someday the world will know? Loving angst? TY so much!
> 
> *Warning for mentions of bearding.

It’s a game he grew tired of playing long ago. Back when Darren had to learn to say ‘straight’ like it was a reflex, when all any interviewer wanted to ask him about was where he put his dick at the end of the day.

 

It’s come up less as time’s gone by, due to the combined efforts of both his denial at even a mention of the word, and the woman who’s played the game right along with him. After so many years, the public’s no longer all that interested- celebrities’ long term relationships are hardly fodder for gossip magazines when they can pounce on much more philanderous A-Listers, especially when said relationships are with decidedly non-famous people.

 

She’s perfect for the job- unremarkable and forgettable, and as long as he puts his arm around her when the cameras are flashing and tries not to wince visibly at her ten-inch claws, the audience doesn’t bat an eyelid. She and Darren are civil at best, their friendship having long since crumbled under the pressure and the lights and their respective partners.

 

Darren can’t really bring himself to care.

 

Half the industry knows the truth, and the other half suspect. He gets the jobs because his talent far overrides his quote unquote “sexuality issues”, which are about as commonplace as plastic surgery and divorce on the Hollywood scandal scale. It’s unspoken that what the general audience doesn’t know, won’t hurt them.

 

As long as it keeps the work constant, and the money rolling in, his team is happy, and they’re at least halfway off his back.

 

***

 

It never used to be a problem, before. Back when what he had with Chris was shiny and new, and wholly consisted of fumbled hook-ups in locked trailers, and following each other home in their respective cars to wake up together in the morning. Back when they could take pictures together, and tweet at each other, without the assumption that the world would explode.

 

Back when they were brimming with blissful naivety, wallowing in the calm before the storm.

 

Then their reverie was broken, their respective teams scrambling to pile lie on top of lie, and suddenly them being together was a thing out of a drama-filled romance novel, with half the romance and twice the drama.

 

It almost tore them apart.

 

But Chris was nothing if not determined, even when Darren gave him a way out, a get out of jail free card to escape the confines that they’d been locked up in. Chris had refused to let what they had go, and Darren owes the world to him. He doesn’t know what would have happened if Chris had left. He’d rather not imagine it.

 

***

 

They’re getting ready for bed, and Darren is steeling himself. His team has informed him that they’re upping the ante for an upcoming event, and now he has to break the news to Chris. Darren hates doing it- he hates having to tell his own boyfriend that he’s going to have to pretend to be in love with another person for a couple of hours.

 

Chris pads into their bedroom barefoot, pausing at the edge of the bed to plug his phone in, and to put away his glasses. Darren’s been sitting on top of the covers for a while now, and Chris crawls over to meet him.

 

“Hi.”

 

He’s all soft around the edges in his sleep shirt and pajama bottoms, and smells like pine body wash. Darren wants to cry with how beautiful he is.

 

Chris furrows his eyebrows, and brings up a hand to smooth out the creases in Darren’s forehead. “Why the long face?”

 

Darren sighs and leans into the touch, curling into his warm embrace so that his head is resting on Chris’ chest.

 

“An event’s coming up,” he murmurs, and tries not to let his stomach knot when Chris stiffens for just a millisecond.

 

“The usual drill?” Chris asks casually, like it’s nothing, like it’s normal that Darren’s expected to go with someone else on his arm.

 

“Yeah,” he replies resignedly, rubbing his cheek on Chris’ silk-soft shirt, letting his lashes brush the material gently. “A couple of posts, a snapchat story, the whole shebang.”

 

Chris only hums noncommittally, and tightens his hold. Darren pulls back to look him in the eye.

 

“You can’t tell me it doesn’t bother you.”

 

Chris holds his gaze, snaking the hand that was curled around Darren’s shoulders down his arms, and pulling Darren’s hands into his lap. Darren remembers when Chris used to recoil from touch like someone had burned him, remembers how long it took for him to tear his walls down.

 

“It doesn’t bother me.”

 

Darren raises his eyebrows. “Chris,” he implores gently.

 

“Truly,” Chris replies, squeezing Darren’s hands. “It doesn’t bother me because I know, that at the end of the day, we come home to each other and no one else. It doesn’t matter what other people think because the only opinion I care about is yours. And as long as you love me, that’s all I’ll ever say.”

 

“I will _never_ stop loving you,” Darren whispers, and Chris smiles softly.

 

“Well then I’ll never stop saying it. As long as you love me, and I love you, nothing else matters.”

 

Darren accepts a gentle kiss, and lets Chris run his hands through his hair. That gentle kiss turns into a hundred more heated ones, until Chris has a hand down Darren’s pants and Darren’s gasping into his mouth.

 

An hour later and they’re settled under the covers, the lights off, and Cooper curled at the foot of the bed.

 

Darren speaks into the darkness. “Sometimes, I feel like shouting it from the rooftops, like telling every person I meet that you’re mine.”

 

Chris slings a leg over Darren so that his toes brush Darren’s calves. His eyes glow in the dim light.

 

“I feel like telling the world.”

 

“You have,” Chris says, and Darren looks at him in surprise. “It’s in your music, in all those words that you sing. And so have I, in my writing. Sometimes I feel like we’ve burrowed our way so deep into each other’s lives, that I’m surprised more people don’t see it.”

 

“Soon,” Darren whispers, and Chris hushes him.

 

“I have you, remember? I have you and you have me, and what the world does or doesn’t know won’t ever change that.”

 

“I don’t deserve you.”

 

“Darren Criss, you deserve _everything_.”

  
  
  
  



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